Cheating With GFs
by Myshu
Summary: How do you put the genie back in the lamp? Squall Leonhart and the art of never playing with a full deck.
1. Flood Gate

A/N: Taking a pit stop from CT to invade the FF8 fandom. Hell, I love Squall, and I love summon monsters, to boot. And you know what I do to characters I love, right?

That's right-I _give them hell_.

And credit where it's due: this was greatly inspired by Luc Court's "Remains of You: Forms," which is on this site and definitely worth a read.

**1. Flood Gate**

Shiva told him, once. Said it was a gift from birth and a privilege. Said that the other Guardian Forces called it _makana_.

That was the only warning Squall Leonhart ever got.

Shiva told him lots of things behind everyone's backs and beneath his mind, where the GFs dwelled like tenants in a crowded dorm and human privacy was overrated. She always had a snip or two about her 'other host,' that 'blonde shell everyone calls a bombshell,' although Squall wouldn't stand to hear much of it. He didn't want to bolster dissent between the GFs and his teammates, especially when the bond between man and guardian could become a critical lifeline in the heat of battle.

Shiva would tell him anyway, whether he wanted to hear it or not. She said that while Quistis was the prettier host, his mind was the jewel more coveted. He never really knew what that meant, that _makana_, and he never asked. Growing up, Squall never afforded himself much curiosity when it came to his work, classes, girls, or... well, anything. His life functioned on a need-to-know basis. He could make demands and gather information as was necessary, but he hated asking questions and being nosy, and he wasn't going to waste time asking what a random GF thought of him. He already knew that too many things about his job, his studies, women and his life in general defied explanation, and it was safer not to question it all. Some things just happened—good things, bad things, _time compression_, whatever—for no good reason at all. That was life. No point asking. Just do your job and get on with it.

There was only one girl (and one GF) whose opinion of him mattered, anyway.

The guards at the front gate didn't ask where Squall was going, first and last because of his stony, intimidating silence as he pushed through the turnstiles, and not least because he was their Commander and could come and go as he pleased. He practically ran the Garden when Cid wasn't around to poke and prod it like a turtle in a tank, admiring his pet project with a fatherly detachment that was somehow endearing to the student body. Cid's humble charms never really swayed Squall, but then again when he was asked to take charge of Balamb Garden, he couldn't refuse the headmaster. It was hard to believe that wasn't even a year ago, and yet back then, Squall didn't feel like he had much choice in anything.

That was probably why he was taking a walk outside at 2200 hours without the slightest pretext. It was just to get out to some place where there weren't any choices to be made for him. Since the fields behind the Garden weren't exactly picnic grounds—and Squall preferred it that way, to discourage any followers—he took Shiva with him. He always chose her for a number of reasons, some of them more petty than practical. Shiva wasn't very powerful, but she didn't make his hair frizz like Quetzacoatl did, and she took up an old, small, familiar void in his mind, unlike the others that treated the surface of his brain like a field to be burned and plowed to make fallow for fresh growth—and those were just what Garden would call "low-rank GFs." When it came to the higher classes and the more powerful forces, they entrenched themselves in deep tunnels, mining for precious memories buried far beneath the surface. Shiva was much more gracious with her host, and could be easily handled—the only problem is she talked too much.

_'...don't see why...'_

_'He does. I've seen... with the successor.'_

Ironically, it only really bothered Squall when she wasn't talking to _him_. Lately, there was someone else—some one or _thing_ he had never met, much less junctioned—and at times he could hear her (a feminine voice, soft yet distant) talking with his GF in hushed, conspiratorial tones, like a couple of gossips. He couldn't say he was comfortable with Shiva's new acquaintance, chatting around his thoughts like his brain was a coffee table, and the mystery behind the stranger's identity was enough to nag his latent curiosity. Whenever he found the nerve to ask, however, Shiva danced around it, dismissing the visitor as unimportant (if she even acknowledged her at all).

As soon as the phenomenon grew more irritating than disquieting, Squall consulted Doctor Kadowaki about it. She called it an aural hallucination, a documented side effect of heavy GF-usage, and counseled him to "take it easy," an ambiguous prescription that only nonplussed the busy commander. Squall then made up his mind to take care of Shiva himself, until he figured out what—or whom—was truly bothering him.

It was summer, and the night was simmering cool and full of cricket-song. After walking for half an hour, so determined to put distance between himself and the sloping neon spires of the Garden that his feet got ahead of himself, he stopped atop a wide knoll. The grass stood up to his knees and was combed in all directions around him, their smooth stalks glistening like frozen waves in the breezeless night, and the moon was a far-flung saucer over the dark mountains. There was nothing but placid green hills for a mile around, and there Squall finally settled down and took some of the doctor's advice. He folded his arms behind his head and lay back in the grass, immersed in perfect solitude, and cleared his mind of everything but the countless stars. All Squall had to do was wait, and then _he_ would find him.

_'Don't want... ask?'_

_'I've seen him... the lion... same way.'_

If only Shiva would give him a minute of peace. Sometimes he didn't show up at all, and Squall was tempted to blame his loquacious GF. He couldn't get angry at his guardian force, however; he only had himself to blame for bringing her along. He was adept at tuning out unwanted chatter, anyway, after a lifetime of practice. He closed his eyes and let the soporific starlight and chirping insects lull him into a doze, where his dark dreams percolated to the surface.

Black ice; black blood; inkblot recollections where blade met flesh and severed bone, bleeding like hot tar that stung the eyes—he learned to treasure all the sticky, nasty things a man conditioned to kill shouldn't keep stowed away in his mind. SeeDs were encouraged to take regular counseling to bolster their mental health; those professionals knew that even a soldier of fortune had to find a way to vent such darkness, lest it consume him. Any sane man would seek a way to let it all out and put it behind him.

Squall saved it all for Griever. He would lay still in the thick of night like a piece of bait, luring the lion to the heady scent of his dreams. Griever loved nightmares best, and whatever Squall lacked in imagination while awake, _those_ he always had in choice supply. With never a word he invited those quiet cat paws to his bedside and let himself get smothered by ethereal fur and a raspy tongue, licking clean the sweat and pain and leaving him cool and empty. Only then could he ever sleep deeply. It was a tradition of sorts, a secret bond they had kept ever since Squall was a child. He couldn't remember how or when it started, anymore. Surely Griever wouldn't take _that_ memory, something so significant as their first meeting. Maybe one of the other ones took it, like Bahamut. Bahamut was always grudging him one poignant memory or another, especially the ones about other GFs. The dragon king coveted those encounters with a hunger that almost looked like jealousy.

At any rate, Griever made him remember why he liked to be alone—one of the kinder reasons, at least. He didn't know that beast Ultimecia corrupted, far in the future that doesn't know him back. Here and now, the lion was pure and admirable, a true king of the beasts. That was why he always carried his favorite fur-lined jacket; when the world felt too dreary, he could lay his head on his desk and imagine himself wearing the lion's mantle—and sometimes after a long day, he could walk outside and truly relax, knowing his old companion was just a few paces behind. Griever was as good and loyal to him as any lifelong pet; he never asked questions, made demands or judged him. Griever took him as he was, silent and uncompromising, a wall of strength and solace.

He could feel it again now—the lion coming to rest with him, its subtle heat permeating the grass as its breath tickled his brow. He never opened his eyes for fear of turning the guardian invisible and breaking the spell. He only clung to those fickle, dreamlike sensations and savored their time together, until the lion grew heavy and sated and Squall was overwhelmed by sleep.

When he did open his eyes again, the sky seemed inverted, the moon hanging upside-down on the other side of the heavens. Griever was long gone. Hours must have passed in slumber, yet he wasn't wearing a watch, so he couldn't be sure. Hopefully nobody missed him in the middle of the night, although if Rinoa got a mind to look for him he was probably in trouble already—no sense worrying about it. Squall rubbed the drowsy numbness from his eyes, got up and trudged back to the Garden.

Once he finally checked back into his room at some small hour (and found the note on his table that read 'Missed you!' in loopy handwriting signed with a heart), he briefly wondered about the little white hairs on his black pants before getting undressed, crawling into bed and forgetting everything.

-1-

Squall was playing a match with the Queen of Cards, except all of a sudden she wasn't.

Card games were one of his favorite (and one of his only) diversions because they required a sort of reasoning that was as basic and irrefutable as arithmetic. It permitted his mind to set aside everything else and focus on an objective that was actually obtainable, as opposed to the subjective and often inscrutable quagmire that was the rest of Squall's life. He liked having a mission laid in front of him in terms as simple and clear as possible (e.g., 'Beat this guy at cards and loot his deck until it's broken,' and not, 'Hang around a group of disorganized rebel wannabies and help them pull increasingly wild and asinine stunts until their home country is liberated according to a very vague and frustratingly irrevocable contract.') Perhaps his approach to card games was a little harsh, but nobody ever accused him of playing unfair—just hard.

He played his Shiva card when she played Siren, and when he looked up again the woman's gypsy-like apparel had turned from red and gold to white and silver—she became a completely alien person in the bat of an eye. Her skin was as pale and fine as chalk, her lips were tinged a ghostly blue, her eyes were slender and sharp and her hair fell in long streaks of platinum. He looked away before he was caught staring, yet when Squall turned his hand over, he was holding her visage in a card, only all the symbols were blank—it was effectively useless. What was the point of this card? How did it get in his deck? Although he had never seen this woman before, he was plagued by familiarity, yet he couldn't think to ask her name. He was concentrating solely on the game.

His trance was broken once she fixed him with quicksilver eyes, her coquettish smile peering over a flushed hand. 'Your _makana_ is calling.'

A felt a tick in the back of his head like something he ought to know better, yet before he could ask, a more pressing urge overcame him. Squall abruptly stood up (what was a table doing in the middle of the second floor walkway?), excused himself and headed for the nearest restroom. He found one across from a classroom, yet the door was blocked with a janitor's broom that was lodged so firmly across the jamb it wouldn't let him pass. Squall decided to not expend too much effort on it and find another way.

It was strange; the elevator only went down, so he had to scour the bottom floor for the next restroom. Every route was barricaded off except one, and that took Squall to the training center—except it didn't anymore. When he pushed through the gate, he was suddenly outside the Garden, and there he spotted it straight ahead, in the middle of a field in plain sight: a naked toilet.

Squall had to go almost desperately now, yet he just couldn't in the open right there. Anyone could look out of the Garden and see him. He never felt so close yet so far from relief at the same time. What could he do—perhaps move the toilet somewhere private? Absurdly enough he tried to do that, kneeling on the ground and taking hold of the porcelain bowl by the base. _One, two, three_—with a great heave he plucked the cumbersome thing off the ground, amazed at the way it ripped out of the earth like a giant weed. When he looked down, fibrous tendrils and clumps of dirt were littered at his feet.

Then the ground erupted, water gushing out of the hole left behind, and Squall jumped back, still holding the uprooted toilet. Mud and grass rained all around him, turning the field into sludge, and Squall didn't have a single decent explanation for himself by the time the next person arrived on the scene. He heard her voice above, below and before anything, like the toll of a bell.

'The flood gate is opened.' There she was again, that woman in white, standing back and regarding him with coy amusement. _'You can't stop it, now.'_

Squall woke up. He was back in his room; his disturbed consciousness would say he never left. The sun was stabbing through the slats of the window blinds and into his eyes, beaming him an instant headache. Squall groaned and sat up, shaking off the shameful dregs of the most ridiculous dream he had in ages. He then realized that his stupid dream had been fueled by a very real need to relieve himself, and he threw off the covers and rolled out of bed in a fit.

He took two long strides across the room towards his (thankfully) private bathroom and then stopped short. The floor was wet. His gaze fell to the running puddle on the mint-green tiled floor and then flowed upstream to the bathroom, where clear water was profusely spilling beneath the door. Squall gripped the doorknob and set his jaw, steeling himself for what he was about to find on the other side (_it has to be a dream I must still be dreaming_.)

The door swung open and Squall took himself back—he wasn't prepared. At all. It took a full five seconds for his brain to even scratch the surface.

His toilet had been torn away at the bolts, leaving jagged white shards protruding from the floor. The busted plumbing gurgled around its remains like a sordid fountain, flooding the room with an inch of water that sluiced about the feet—no, _hooves, _cloven hooves—of the monster that almost entirely filled the enclosed space. Its hide was dark and matted with stiff violet fur, and it stood upright on two stout legs, its muscle-bound girth hunched over the strange bundle in its arms: the misplaced toilet.

It was a GF. It was _Sacred_—a GF that Squall had never junctioned in his life, yet it somehow manifested in the flesh without his consent and with just enough intuition to wreck the most vital component of his bathroom at the very moment he needed it. The way Squall's jaw fell slack, his brow creased angrily and his hand froze on the door was just shy of catatonic disdain. If it were an ordinary monster, he might have reacted with shock and then an appropriate amount of violence, but he knew this hulking purple brute, and that somehow made it worse.

There was a GF in his bathroom. Holding his broken toilet. Sacred turned its blunt cougar countenance towards Squall, shrugged and held out the shattered bowl like a cat offering a dead bird to its master. The frown that molded around its tusks was oddly apologetic. Squall did the only possible thing he could think to do that would make this insane spectacle go away.

He shut the door.


	2. Communication

**2. Communication**

The bureaucratic aspect of the Garden Commander's job wasn't Squall's favorite, by a long shot. As it was, he was barely comfortable giving orders to a student body he had barely surpassed, yet he could handle it 'passably,' as Xu would say. What he wasn't sure he could handle was the office work: reviewing reports and signing his name off to every odd that wanted a permit to every end. Utility work, training area inspections, lawn maintenance, faculty time sheets—it seemed like nothing in Garden was capable of functioning without a stroke of the pen behind it. Fortunately, Squall inherited Cid's secretary to handle most of the paperwork (although he hadn't yet overcome the novelty of being in a position that required a secretary—it's not something he ever personally fancied.)

Meanwhile, Nida remained responsible for the Garden's mobility, and Xu tackled the finer managerial details in Squall's stead. As a matter of fact, she seemed to prefer it to fieldwork, which sometimes baffled Squall. If he couldn't walk outside and hit something with his gunblade once in a while, he didn't feel like he was doing anything worthwhile, much less performing like a true SeeD—although the further he delved into the definitions of 'SeeD' and 'Garden,' the less worthwhile the whole institution appeared.

He could wish for the time when he didn't have this responsibility, when he didn't know the far gone fate of hundreds of child-soldiers littered about the base of a gothic monstrosity, or when he didn't know who and what truly ran the Garden beneath that pristine facade—but Squall recognized that wish as puerile before it even crossed his mind. Accepting the uglier truth was only part of growing up (getting a job, wasting away at a desk like a 'normal' person, growing old, teaching his not-yet-children the past tense. He can't remember when he decided that all he wanted to do was kill things for a living, or if he made that decision at all.)

At any rate, that left Squall the miscellany of being the man in charge. His desktop was plastered with every color except its original mahogany, and at the bottom of the tablecloth of memos and sticky-notes he could still spy the corner of a neon green flyer advertising the 'Balamb Regional Triple Triad Tournament & Expo.' It frequently caught his eye, dangling off the edge of a waking dream and between every paragraph of the insipid legal type he was forcing himself to read.

Mrs. Elsie, his kind secretary, insisted it was important, at any rate. It was an application for security clearance submitted by some Galbadian lawyer on behalf of a doctor who was invited to the conference Balamb Garden was going to host—was it next week, or the week after? Squall had already lost track of the date, and the vague language of the doctor's application wasn't helping. What was '_Attendee On-Site Identification and Eligible Authorization Mandate'_ actually supposed to mean? Was being able to write in obfuscating notation a requisite for graduating law school, or was it especially reserved for Garden?

Eventually he gave up and started skimming the document for blanks to fill with his initials. It was then that the door to his office (over twenty feet away, down a stretch of regal red carpet that Cid must have thought inspired grandeur) breezed open and someone marched his way. Without a second glance (and with observation skills honed through years of combat training and slouching in the corner of a classroom avoiding eye contact) he judged by the visitor's slender build and swinging gait that she was female—a female lacking the courtesy and protocol to stop and introduce herself before walking straight to his desk and stopping aggressively short, hands planted on hips.

He didn't bother looking up; there were only two women he knew with the sort of audacity (much less clearance) to barge into his office like this. One was Xu, and the other was—

"Squall, we need to talk."

Squall possessed a modified version of the 'fight or flight' instinct, better called 'confront or ignore,' and he decided which would be most effective here with a compromise, dotting another 'L' on the document while grunting, "...uhn."

Rinoa dramatically threw out her arms. "Exactly. 'Uhn' is not talking! It's not even a word."

He stifled the sigh normally reserved for interruptions, set his pen down, leaned across his desk and made a point to look like he was paying attention (even if he wouldn't be able to focus much past the sheen of skylight on her silky black hair, or her bright pink lip gloss, or—had he seen that black dress before? It was strange to see her in black...) "...Well?"

Her dark eyes twinkled with a smile that was both crafty and merciful as she prowled closer and sat on his desk, shadowing his work like a lavender-scented panther. "Where'd you go last night? I was looking for you."

"Nowhere," he said as plainly as possible, not wanting to make it sound like an enticing mystery. He really did go to the middle of nowhere.

"I'll say. You were nowhere to be found. I wanted to play..." she crooned, one finger drawing invisible loops on the desk.

"Sorry I missed you." He had to clear his throat before that sounded sincere—even if he actually meant them, the words felt obtuse in his mouth. They might've been seeing each other for months, now, yet Squall was still warming up to the strange sentimentality Rinoa brewed in him. (_"Love will do that," _Quistis once warned him, wistfully, in another piece of counsel he didn't ask for._ "It'll put words in your mouth you never thought you'd say."_)

"So where did you run off to? I asked the front gate and they told me you were out of the Garden 'til two in the morning."

He peered up at her. "You were spying on me?"

"I was politely asking around," she delicately amended.

Squall picked up his pen and shrugged back to work. "I didn't go into town. I just went out for a walk."

Her brow knitted over a bemused, "In the fields? By yourself? At _midnight_?"

Squall spent five seconds looking for the best way to answer without validating the crazy ring to her question (_'It was actually 2200'_ probably wouldn't cut it.) He came up with nothing better than, "...Yeah."

Rinoa backed off, hands splayed outward. "I'm not accusing you of anything! I'm just curious. It's a little weird to go walking around the fields at night." She pressed a finger to her lips and archly mused, "I'd almost say it was romantic. Did you go to meet someone?"

Before Squall's response could finish fermenting (_I thought you weren't accusing me of anything?_) she leaned close and whispered, "You should've brought me along. I bet you've never been in a Galbad Triad with two girls before."

His pen jerked in a grotesque checkmark as he stammered, "No—ah, no," to all of the above. Squall figured she sometimes said naughty things just to shock him, yet knowing that didn't make the shock any less effective. Worse, she never explained _where _a general's daughter had picked up all those dirty expressions, so it was left to his (very grim and uninspired) imagination.

She rocked on the edge of the desk and tittered, wildly amused. "I'm just picking on you!" With one brisk breath she was bright and breezy again, not even a blush betraying her caprice. Sometimes, the little ways she acted—exuberant one moment and sober the next—tore him between awe, envy and fear. Perhaps admiring the spectacle of her and trying to understand it was what kept him drawn to her... No one else excited his curiosity like that. "Seriously though, next time you go out, let me know or something. Leave a note, okay? Don't just disappear on me. I was worried."

"Sorry," he relented. Two more pages and he'd finally be done with this document. "I'll remember."

"And you'll let me come next time?"

After another initial she got an offhanded, "Sure."

"Promise?"

He reached to flip the page and found its corner wedged under Rinoa's thigh, close enough to be tantalizing if it weren't blemished with strange dark streaks. "...You're smudging the ink," he realized, flatly.

"Huh? Oh, oh!" She jumped to her feet, swatting at her legs as if Squall had been writing with liquid spiders. "Ahh, ee! Ohh, how—I'm sorry, my bad. Ack, my dress. Good thing it's black, I suppose..." After fumbling and squinting over the material for a minute, she let it go, clasped her arms behind her back and cheerfully bounced on her heels. "Anyway! Forget about work for a second and come eat lunch with us."

Squall didn't miss the plural. "Us?"

She rolled up her eyes and began counting off on her hand, making a great exercise of it. "That's right: Me, Quistis, Zell, Irvine, Selphie—"

"When did Irvine and Selphie get here?" he asked, genuinely surprised.

She gasped, not failing to act aghast every time he missed a detail. "Squall! I already talked with you about this. They're staying at our Garden—"

"For the conference, I know. You didn't say when."

"Uh-huh," she retracted, seeming to chalk up his smart reply to a technicality. "Well, they just got in today. You'd know that if you didn't have your nose in your desk all morning. Com'on, pull your head out of the sand and hang out with us for a little bit! Pleeeease?"

_(I don't think that's what that expression means...)_ he thought, just beneath the rebuttal that he only sat down in his office half an hour ago, and since sunrise he had actually been helping the custodial crew contain the flood damage from a certain... plumbing failure in the dorms. Rather than picking at her argument, he gave in to her pleading look (eyes shining over her clasped hands and everything. Rinoa did not beg lightly.) "...All right."

"Yaaaay, com'on! They're already in the cafeteria."

-2-

"So me and Selphie were comin' down the mountain, dragging this huge horn—"

"Selphie and I."

His fork paused mid-stroke, in the middle of conducting an elaborate tale about a decapitated mesmerize over an audience of peas and meatloaf. He shot a perturbed look at the woman on the other side of the table, who looked back at him through a tidy pair of bifocals with a very particular, if poised, expression. "Woman," he started in an exaggerated, drawling accent. "Are you correcting me?"

The crack of a smile was played off with a roll of the eyes. "I'm only saying, just because you butchered an animal in front of a lady doesn't mean you have to butcher the language in front of her as well."

The young lady at his left started giggling as he leaned forward and wagged his fork at his critic. "Now listen here: where I come from, a man is entitled to butcher the language however he pleases, and with whatever woman he pleases, without being corrected. And there ain't nothin' against double negatives, split infinities, ending a sentence with a preposition..." His rant lost its cadence once the other onlookers at the table crumbled into snickers. "...Nothin' you can do about it, y'hear? Full stop."

Quistis unsuccessfully masked a chuckle with one hand as she waved him off with the other. "By all means, then, butcher away."

Irvine grinned and stabbed his meatloaf in victory. "Right. So _Selphie and I_ were dragging this huge—"

Zell virtually lunged across his plate to interject, "Hey, what do you mean, 'where I come from'? We all came from the same place!"

"Quit interrupting!" Selphie chirped, yet that left an opening for Quistis to remark, in her own affected cowgirl accent, "He must be talking about those low-down varmints from G-Garden."

At this the group dropped their wits and lunches, Selphie choking on her soda and Zell collapsing over the table (nearly face-planting into a pile of ketchup) while Irvine kicked back in his chair and threw a tall laugh to the ceiling. Several seconds passed before he found the breath to protest, "Damn you woman, I am never gonna finish this story if you—"

"Hey, what's so funny?"

Gazes flew across the crowded cafeteria to the woman in the black dress approaching their table—and then to her companion, who did an impressive job of looking like he was being dragged by the arm without anyone actually touching him. Selphie took flight before either of them reached the table, and she latched onto Squall's elbow while Rinoa laughed at his attempt to shrug her off and balance the tray of food in his hands at the same time. "Squallie!"

"Selphie," he grunted as he maneuvered around a chair, forcing his assailant to break free. She danced back a step, hardly repulsed, and then tilted a friendly smile at him. Squall could never determine if Selphie was happily obvious or obliviously happy, yet there was a certain... constant, vacuous quality about her that he was afraid to look in the eye. "Long time no see, you know?"

"I had to drag him out of his den by the tail, like I told you," Rinoa teased, and something between pleasantries and ridicule ensued while the pair settled at the table. It was tucked in an alcove away from the masses yet still within earshot of the midday thrum. A skinny tree set in a tidy circle of stone tile offered the illusion of shade and privacy, even though the group was easily within spotting distance. Students and staff alike rarely intruded on the famous team's lunch out of a mixture of awe and respect.

At length Irvine made a show of kicking one boot onto the table as he asked, "So Squall, what's this conference malarkey all about?"

While Squall paused to chew on his answer Quistis supplied, "Garden leaders are gathering a committee to decide what to do with the GFs."

Selphie glanced up from the chips she was delicately stacking to wonder, "What do you mean, what to do with them? Aren't we already doing stuff with them?"

Irvine asked in turn, "More importantly, they're not gonna ask us to get up there and talk, are they? I'm not a man for speeches."

Squall immediately shook his head. "No, no they won't." _(Not if I have anything to say about it.)_ "Dr. Kadowaki is making a presentation and wants our input for her research, is all. She's going to call each of us for interviews later."

"That's why we came all this way? Just to talk to some doctors about stuff they already know?" Selphie half-heartedly whined (the rest of her was devoted to dotting the eyes on her 'tater buffalo' with ketchup.)

Zell had to be the optimist. "Well hey, the timing couldn't be better. Squall, are you going to be in the tournament?"

He feigned disinterest in anything that wasn't his food; a card master taught Squall to never show one's whole hand at once. "The tournament?"

As usual, this only served to rile Zell. "Oh com'on, you know, THE tournament! There's only one! Card players from all over the world are gonna be there!"

"I heard the Queen's gonna show, too," Irvine noted.

"Oh yeah, there's no doubt she'll be there," Zell said matter-of-factly while still sounding like an excited schoolboy. "You think she'll actually play, though?"

Irvine preoccupied himself with a toothpick, responding through his teeth, "There's no tellin'."

"Balamb sure will be crowded," Rinoa mused as she dipped a potato chip in the ketchup on Squall's plate.

Interestingly enough, the one at the table who didn't let Zell's question go by unchecked was Quistis. "Well, Squall? Are you going to participate?"

Squall passed a look that bordered intrigued. "Are you?"

The Garden's surreptitious 'King' of cards returned a sly smirk. "I might consider it."

"I think I might, too," Rinoa pitched in. "I mean, I know I'm not the best at cards, but I think I've picked up a lot from you guys! It sounds like a lot of fun."

Zell bounced his eager look over to her. "Totally, you should go for it! The grand prize is gonna be ten thousand gil and a whole stack of rare cards."

The party discussed card strategies and the upcoming festivities in general, until Zell caught the eye of a girl with a pigtail in a departing pack of SeeDs. He threw up an arm and the girl bashfully waved back before getting whisked away by the crowd. Her familiar face apparently triggered a passing point of interest, because Zell then whirled in his seat and asked in Squall's direction, "So hey hey, what's up with that flood in the dorms this morning?"

The others perked up, interested, as Selphie obliviously enquired, "Flood?"

Zell nodded. "Yeah, up in the north hall. They've still got it blocked off. Custodian had to shut off the main for like an hour."

"Oh I know, I couldn't even take a shower," Rinoa bemoaned, wringing a lock of her hair. "I must look awful."

_(You look fine,)_ Squall thought to say, but the reflex to speak clashed with the instinct to stay silent, and it was Selphie who filled that void, instead. "Oh but you look good!"

Rinoa smiled in kind. "Aww, thanks. You like my new dress? I've never worn this much black. I was worried it would be too much and wouldn't go good with my hair..."

"Hey now," Irvine picked up the derailed conversation. "I wanna hear 'bout this flood."

Despite the ingrained SeeD protocol to relate all—and only—relevant information, Squall refrained from mentioning Sacred's appearance. One giant, leaky problem was enough. Besides, as soon as he had rallied his wits and looked in his bathroom again, the GF had vanished. It would've been enough to convince him that he just had another dream (or at worst, an early morning hallucination as a side-effect of junctioning), but that didn't explain the fractured toilet lying on its side on the gushing-wet floor. Squall had no explanation for that—he didn't really know where to begin.

So he didn't. "It was nothing."

Zell reared back, voice brimming loudly with astonishment. "Really? Because I heard that a toilet, like, exploded!"

Irvine's nonchalant facade again split with a laugh. "Haha, what?"

"It's true! Penny saw them carrying big chunks of it out to the dumpster."

"Toilets don't just explode!" Selphie asserted, but then her face dropped, eyes wide and wary. "Do they?"

Squall's need to remain silent was overcome by the sudden, stranger need to pacify her. "It was a one-time accident. It won't happen again." _(So help me.)_

Saying so was a fatal mistake; Zell turned on him, tipped off like a hound to the bleeding scent of gossip. "So you know whose dorm it was?"

Everyone looked to him. Squall weighed an outright lie against the embarrassment before deciding that he didn't have enough energy or motive to deceive his friends; that required actually giving a damn what other people thought. He had only hoped to spare himself an onslaught of weird questions, although honesty could be a better policy when trying to sell indifference—if he kept shrugging it off, hopefully they would, too. He resolutely stared at the meatloaf he was mashing with his fork as he answered, "It was mine, actually."

"Wh-what?"  
"Are you serious?"  
"You're joking."  
"Did your toilet really explode?"  
"How the hell did that happen, man?"  
"Haha what, I've heard of dropping a deuce, but damn...!"

The girls' surprise was innocent enough, yet between Irvine's heckling and Zell's perverse grin, Squall was wishing for some para-magic that would allow him to punch both in the face at once. Perhaps he could get Rinoa to lend a fist.

He was getting no help from that corner, however, since his response was interrupted by Rinoa cuffing his shoulder and pouting. "Nothing, huh?"

Squall cleared his throat, carefully. "...It'll be fixed in a day or two."

"Well! Looks like you'll have to stay with me until then," Rinoa declared in a huff, and then turned aside a grin that looked like she just stole something and got away with it.

Once again, Squall wasn't sure what to say. He wasn't going to argue with her verdict—that was for certain. Rinoa had the strangest ways of not punishing him. "...I guess."

Zell spoke up. "I'm surprised you never moved out of there anyway, man. I mean, you're the commander now, you know? You don't have to stay in the same dorm you had when you were in the ranks."

Said commander merely shrugged. "I never got around to moving out."

"Heh!" Irvine snorted. "That sounds like me. Once I find a comfortable pad, it takes hell and high water to get me to budge."

Quistis arched one fine eyebrow Squall's way. "Looks like that's precisely the case."

-2-

It didn't take an hour for Squall to (superficially) move into Rinoa's room. He only brought a change of clothes, some toiletries, a pack of his rare cards and two of his gunblades—the only material possessions he didn't trust to abandon overnight. As he set his bag down and stood in the middle of the floor, the first and last thought to strike him was not an unfamiliar one—just one he'd never surmount.

It was all very... pink.

It didn't matter so much in the evenings, when the lights were toned down to candles and his focus was more on what was in Rinoa's bed than what was on her walls, but in the dispassionate daylight the candy-bright palette glared at him from every corner. Whatever wasn't pink was white, and whatever wasn't white was sparkly. Lampshades were decked in tinsel, photographs were framed with spangles, and curtains were laced with glitter. There was an animal theme, too—the coffee mug on the dresser sported the phrase, "I Love Dogs" with a big red heart, and the one on the nightstand had a cartoon cat face. A pink elephant figurine guarded the liquor cabinet, and a little porcelain pig with wings dangled by a chain from the ceiling, right over Angelo's bowls (which were also decorated with glittery paw-prints.)

The wall behind her bed was the most boggling—a dizzy collage of magazine pictures, metallic paint and craft paper that looked like a gift shop had been steamrolled over the plaster. Squall strained to remember what these guest quarters originally looked like before they were offered to Rinoa and her whimsy, but the sheer pink seared a hole in that spot of his memory more effectively than any GF ever could.

In fact, between the garish hues and girly fragrances, he had a headache already. Here Rinoa had left him, stranded with his few not-pink belongings, a kiss on the cheek and a promise to see him later once she was finished shopping with Quistis and Selphie in town. If the length of the shopping excursions those three took during their pursuit of the sorceress was any indication, Rinoa might as well have said, 'See you tomorrow.'

Even the dog took off with her, although Squall didn't need the canine's company; he had only hoped to observe how the animal coped with the extreme environment. Maybe Angelo could teach him how to block out the smell of a pink migraine. _(If_—_When we officially move in together, there's going to be a compromise with the decorating. A big one.)_

For now, however, it was her abode, and he had to respect it. Squall sighed, ran a hand through his hair and sought out the couch (it was a more forgiving shade of light red than the rest of the furniture.) With only his girlfriend's advice to 'make yourself at home,' he might as well start with a nap.

"Is she gone?"

He had only shut his eyes for a moment before bolting back to his feet, hand grasping for a weapon he was sorely lacking. Squall sharply turned to face that voice—diminutive yet masculine, with an almost bestial twang—yet ended up spinning in a circle. Whoever—whatever had spoken had vanished without a trace. Or had it even appeared in the first place? He was about to call it out, but it didn't feel very sane to shout into an empty room after a trick of his own tired mind _(Did I fall asleep that fast?)_ so Squall let go of his breath and turned to sit back down.

And then stopped short. Something was sitting in his spot. It was some... creature, with coarse purple fur, tusks, horns and hooves. It was no bigger than a Labrador and looked like a cross between a bull and an ape, one of its simian hands rubbing its snout while the other dusted off its blue tunic.

It was a GF. Again. If Squall hadn't met its counterpart that morning, he wouldn't have recognized it through his shock.

Minotaur leaned back into the couch, cocked its deep-set eyes up to Squall and simply asked, "Didn't startle ya, did I, chief?"

When he blinked twice and the GF was still there, unfazed and quite comfortable in the reality Squall refused to accept, he resorted to his words. At least now he could talk to a genuine apparition, and the first question he voiced was a deadpan, "What are you doing here."

The talking beast's brow rumpled with an injured expression. "Whaddya mean, what am I doing here? I wanted to talk to ya! I just had to wait for the broad to get out of the picture, first." Minotaur hopped to his feet and extended a large, broad hand in supplication. "Anyway, I wanted to say I'm sorry, y'know, about your can. My brother, he doesn't do so good, with the thinking stuff. Head's full of meat, if you know what I mean. Although in his defense, he thought that's what you asked him to do."

Squall shook his head—that didn't dispel the intruder, either, but it did jostle his thoughts into place. "Are you crazy? I didn't ask for that. I'm not even junctioned to you—either of you. How is it you're even here?"

Minotaur rolled his broad shoulders in a shrug and then began to wander, both exploring the room and answering Squall at his leisure. "Well like I said, I had to wait for your lady friend to clear out. She's all up in your space, you know that? Won't even let a guy think. I don't know why you man-types let the tits hang around your neck all day like that. Talk about baggage." He snorted, amused with his own gibe.

"What's Rinoa got to do with this?" Squall questioned.

The GF squatted next to Angelo's bowl, nostrils flaring thoughtfully over the dog food. "Ah, you know how it is, what-all her bein' the... you know. The witch."

Squall paused, considering that—and to think, their team never gave Rinoa a GF because she wasn't properly trained to handle them. It stopped being an issue once she learned how to go into a magic-slinging frenzy that was nearly more potent than any of their GFs' attacks, besides. "...You're afraid of the sorceress?"

Minotaur snapped back, "I didn't say I was scared of shit!" He then rubbed the back of his neck, hedging his reply. "Except, uh, yeah, those broads'll mess us up good. She's like the opposite of what you are, chief, you know?" Sauntering out of the living room and into the bedroom, he continued, "I thought everybody learned to steer clear'a those psychos by now—not that yours ain't a nice gal, I suppose. Geez, look at all this pink. Is that construction paper? And perfume? It's like some glue-sniffer smeared her cherry douche all over the walls."

Squall shook his head again, clearing his muddled thoughts for a more productive mindset: annoyance. He was not having this. "Get out of here, right now."

"What, worn out my welcome already? Com'on chief, I ain't even had a chance to make it up to ya."

"I don't want you to do anything but leave. I didn't summon you, so you shouldn't be here."

The GF craned an odd look back to him. "Are you serious? Is that the only reason you're so uptight here? A guy ain't allowed to just walk up and apologize without bein' summoned like a damn slave?"

"You're a GF," Squall said, as if that explained everything—in former circumstances, it would have.

Minotaur shot him a dumb, slack-jawed look, rolled his eyes and muttered, "Wow, I feel like we're goin' backwards, here, like the conversation's stuck in reverse." He then marched back to Squall and offered a sardonic handshake. "Yes, hello, I'm a Guardian Force. Nice to meet ya. You sure my brother didn't clock you over the head with that toilet, give you a big knot on the brain or somethin'?"

"No."

"Well okay then, just makin' sure, because you're getting a case of the slows pretty hard. Look, let me make it easy for ya: just tell me how me and my brother can set you right, get you back in your own pad. We fix you up, we'll be square. Deal?"

Squall pointed at the door, since language alone didn't seem to communicate his problem with the GF. "I don't want your help. I just want you to leave."

Minotaur clucked and folded his burly arms. "Tch, persistent, aren't ya? Alright then, make me."

Squall lowered a hard look at him. "What."

He couldn't be sure, but Squall thought he read a smirk on that thick muzzle. "I don't mean it all threatenin'. I just said make me. You want me gone, then make me go away. Go on, do it."

How could Squall dismiss what he didn't summon in the first place? He strongly considered going into the closet and getting Revolver, but it wasn't the kind of weapon good for swinging around an enclosed room (and he didn't look forward to explaining the suspiciously dark red spots on Rinoa's pristinely pink upholstery.) What was he going to do, then, pick Minotaur up by the scruff and toss him outside like a stray cat?

As he deliberated this, Minotaur jumped to the hapless conclusion. "Uh-huh, can't do it, can ya? That's what I thought. So how's about we settle this like civilized gents, right?"

Squall couldn't get rid of this—not on his own. In a stroke of what was hopefully genius and not some delusional idea, he turned around and walked out the door.

Minotaur called at his heels, baffled and slightly alarmed, "Whoa whoa hey there, where ya goin'?"

"To find Rinoa."

* * *

A/N: I have to confess, I was putting this fic on a back-burner for a good while. I've got stuff to do, you know? But then I was reading over my notes for this and couldn't stop laughing. I'm not sure if that's a good sign or a bad sign, but I'm pretty sure it means I have to keep writing.

Thanks once again to DK and my icy homies for, uh... Triple Triad. They know what I mean.


	3. Hypothesis

Who's still writing fanfiction? Not me, officer. I don't know what you're talking about.

*surreptitiously sweeps notepad under rug*

* * *

**3. Hypothesis**

Squall didn't even make it out of the Garden.

He was walking fast and hard through the grand lobby, trying to put as much distance between himself and that GF—that damn _apparition_, if it was even real—as possible, and if he found Rinoa on the way, that worked even better. At least he didn't have to pass through a gauntlet of strange looks. It was that lull in the evening between the rush of dismissed classes and the night shift, not yet quiet enough to hear his own footsteps but just enough to hear himself think.

That's where Squall stopped, his thoughts catching up to him at the corner where the elevators faced the front gates. What was he doing? In a fit of desperation he had this notion—this rash, germinal idea—that if Minotaur didn't like Rinoa, then being near Rinoa would rid him of the GF. Even if that was true, it was a short-term solution at best. He couldn't hang around Rinoa _constantly_. As much as she might appreciate the attention at first, it was impractical more than anything (she didn't help him around the office for a litany of reasons, 'distraction' and 'boredom' at the top of their respective lists.) Secondly, that would never answer _why_ the GF appeared to him like that, out of the blue (or pink, rather) without a summoning, and that was something Squall needed to find out.

Finally—and this was what made him pause—that solution was tantamount to running to mommy to get the boogeyman out of the closet. Squall was not doing that. He was never that type of kid, growing up—not that he never got scared of shadows. He had the foggiest recollection of taking cover under the sheets while Zell went crying to Matron, but Squall didn't dare follow that route and give Seifer the satisfaction of calling him 'chicken wuss,' too. And not that he never cried, either, it was just... he was alone. He had always been alone. He still had one early memory, potent and untarnished by GFs, of standing outside and wiping tears on a rain-soaked sleeve, vowing to never...

Never...?

Squall shut his eyes and pinched his brow, squinting at fading thunder in the back of his mind. And he can hear and feel and _smell _the lion but he still can't see it.

_(Griever, do you remember?)_

"Ah, zere you are."

As soon as Squall looked, they were right in front of him, as if they had magicked into the lobby. It was a practiced feat to hold his composure and not jump back in shock, although something must have betrayed his surprise, judging by the grin that snaked across the older man's face.

"Did ve sneak up on you?"

Doctor Odine was not a pleasant person. There was something slightly offensive about his... well, his everything, from his condescending tone to his ungainly sense of fashion. He was always seen wearing that big, striped parasol-collar and baggy suspenders, pacing about the room with a stoop like a derelict clown. Squall could have dismissed him as nothing more than an annoying eccentric with too much clout, but if he remembered correctly (by proxy, if it's possible for implanted memories to be correct or real) this man had a lot to answer for what happened to Ellone all those years ago.

Right behind him was a gargantuan bodyguard who looked quietly uncomfortable in those heavy white Estharian robes. Squall recognized him at a glance; Ward was a man with whom he could easily connect. Perhaps it was that sturdy, mutual silence wherein a 'hello' could be exchanged with a mere nod, and then neither would need to converse further. ...Not that it was possible, for Ward. Squall almost felt bad for the loss of Ward's voice, but he had too often entertained the fantasy of never being expected to talk to people to be entirely sympathetic. (_It must be nice, sometimes..._)

"Doctor Odine." Squall nodded out of base respect, minding not to bow too far lest the chip fall off his shoulder.

"Squall," Odine returned, and it was oddly refreshing to be addressed so shortly, as if all of a sudden he was beneath the doctor. It was a change from the way students and staff scurried up to him all day with that deferential _sir_ (or 'Mr. Commander!') though Squall knew better than to feel special; Odine was just courteous enough to talk down to everyone equally. "I might say it iz nice to see you again."

(_Don't strain yourself._) "You've arrived early for the conference?" (_It's not for another five days._)

"Of course, of course..." Odine nodded slowly, starched ponytail bobbing over his head. "I wouldn't vant to miss anyt'ing so important. You could say ze fate of all GF hang in the balance of zis fateful gathering, yes? I just hope your committee remembers how instrumental GF vere in ze battle against ze sorceress."

(_Who said this was MY committee? All of Garden is in on this._) "I'm sure they didn't forget."

He continued musing as if Squall wasn't there, his distant, glassy look amplified by his thick spectacles—there was a fountain of a goggle-eyed karp a short ways behind the doctor that suddenly bore his likeness. "Hmm, some might even say zat's ze reason GF vere created..."

Something in that sentence hit a snag in Squall's head. "Created?"

Odine shrugged dismissively. "Oh, vell, zere's never been any conclusive evidence to ze origin of GF. Zere is only folklore and speculation... hardly scientific. Even a great authority such as I, who haz dedicated years of research into GF and 'ow to junction zem..."

(_As if I need to be reminded of this._)

"...might never uncover zat mystery. Why, I remember ven I first developed ze junctioning technique, so many years ago. I vas werking day and night on a machine zat could capture..."

(_Does he even remember who he's talking to, or does he give this pompous speech to everyone on a regular basis?_)

"...My colleagues said, if I veren't already mad, ze beasts vould drive me to it! But I showed zem, didn't I? Hohoho!"

(_God, if I ever get this old and windy, I hope someone puts me out of everyone's misery._)

His tone took a stern drop. "Even so, surely a SeeD of your experience understands ze importance of my research, and how ze continued..." He rubbed his fingers like a panhandler scratching for change, until the right word came to him. "...Employment of GF in Garden iz necessary for zat."

(_Employment? They would think of it more as enslavement._) The thought came so abruptly and unbidden that Squall was taken aback. It wasn't a sentiment that made sense to him, rationally, and in the backlash he lost his voice.

Odine only took that as a comment on how impressive his argument was, and a cue to keep talking. "It might even interest Garden to know zat I have been developing a method to summon GF wit'out ze hazards of junctioning... but zen, research haz been painfully slow zese days. If only I had more rezources..."

Squall was interested and alarmed at once. (_Wait, how would that be possible?_) "Resources?"

"Oh yes, you know, it can be very difficult to experiment on GF wit'out any subjects..."

(_You mean lab rats. If you think I'm going to give you any of this Garden's students or GFs, after what you did to Ellone..._) "That's a shame."

"It iz, it iz..." Seeing himself at an impasse—one giving him a very flinty, uncooperative look—the doctor tucked his hands behind his back and turned away. "Vell, it iz getting late, and we old men like to retire early. I suppose you have quarters prepared for me already, yes?"

(_Nice to know you'll be imposing on us directly. We just have an opening, as a matter of fact. Toilet's not included, but..._) "I can call someone to show you to your room."

Squall started in the other direction to do just that, but before one foot crossed the other he held back, realizing he had an opportunity as rare as it was convenient. "Doctor Odine." He hesitated until he had the old man's attention, long enough for his pregnant question to birth a fully formed sentence. "Is it possible to summon a GF... unintentionally?"

"Hmm?" He narrowed a keen look at the commander. "Do you mean... wit'out ze summoner's consent?"

(_Something like that_.) Squall let his question sit long enough for the doctor to mull over it. "Interezing... I suppose it depends on ze GF. Ones in ze wild can behave unpredictably. I believe zere iz documentation from your own team zat recounts certain GF behaving in zat way, even after junctioning."

(_Right. There was Odin, and others, but..._) "What about a GF that isn't junctioned to you?"

Odine's bushy eyebrows peered over the top of his glasses. "Zat is interezing," was all he said for several seconds. "Do you have a case for me, or iz zis all a hypot'etical discussion?"

(_I just watched a midget sasquatch try to eat out of Angelo's food bowl._) "...No."

Odine seemed sincerely disappointed. "Vell zat, as you say, iz a shame." On second thought, he tugged on a gross bit of stubble, trying to pull his gaunt face into something that could be taken seriously. "I vould t'ink, though, zat if such a case had arisen, it vould have made quite a spectacle of itself by now."

_"Not half the spectacle you make every time you walk outside in that outfit."_

Odine's sour countenance locked up as Ward's head snapped in Squall's direction, eyes bulging in disbelief, and a beat passed between the three before Squall realized he had said that out loud. _Godsdamnit_, his brain-to-mouth filter usually functioned so well—what the hell was wrong with him?

That seemed to be exactly what Ward wanted to ask, but then he had to fall back to avoid getting smacked by Odine's collar as the doctor threw his head back to laugh—still in that belabored accent, "Kwahahahahah!" After a moment, the cackling simmered down to a mirthful sneer. "Zah, hah... how amuzing. Yes... I'm sure I can show myself around. It haz been a pleazure, Squall."

He then ambled away, his bodyguard trudging at the doctor's heels. The close-lipped grin that Ward passed over his shoulder didn't really make Squall feel better, but it was nice to know that on some unspoken level, somebody approved.

-3-

Following that disaster of an encounter, Squall decided to make himself scarce rather than wasting the rest of his evening running around Garden—or worse, flitting around Balamb like a lost dog, looking for his girlfriend. Tonight would have been perfect for going back out to the fields for the alone-time he was suddenly craving, but his promise to Rinoa was still too fresh to consider writing an excuse around it.

He had plenty of writing to do at his desk, besides, so he took solace with the warm, solitary light of a lamp as he worked under the slowly darkening glass ceiling of the headmaster's office. Even without the conference coming up and its miles of red tape, there were still backlogged work orders to sign for SeeD posts across the continents.

As it happened, the week's newest batch appeared with a fluttering smack, like a pigeon dropping dead on his desk. Squall glanced up at the delivery girl, who crossed her arms and cocked a wryly quizzical look at him. "Is this your strategy for the evening?" Xu asked.

His reply was to keep writing. As unusual as it was, he wasn't in the mood for Xu's attempt at colleague-to-colleague banter. "Hmm?"

She shrugged and settled on the corner of his desk, somewhat more mindful than Rinoa not to sit on any sticky paperwork. "Nothing. I just thought you'd be taking the night off with Rinoa, rather than holing up in the office."

"She went to town with Quistis and Selphie. Some 'girls night out' thing. Even if I was invited, I'd rather not become a personal shopping cart for all the clothes they're buying." Squall didn't leave his brain-to-mouth filter on when working with Xu, although he couldn't say why. Something about sitting in Cid's old chair made him overtly cynical—or it was something about Xu, although they didn't particularly like each other or see the need to be friends—maybe that was it.

Xu tended to take everything he said (or didn't say) in stride, at least. "I see."

"And what are you doing here this late?" he tried to turn the conversation back on her.

"I was just going to drop this off on your desk to sign in the morning, but looks like you beat me here."

"How convenient." Squall's snide tone fell flat—he couldn't even muster the energy to be sarcastic.

Xu let it pass with a sidelong smirk. "Quite."

He thumbed through the stack of orders before sticking them at the bottom of the pile, and then got back to checking the older ones. A signature later, Xu was still there—staring at him but not quite, light eyes hovering around the odds and ends of the desk. This was getting strange; it wasn't Xu's custom to loiter, and she never acted shy about any work-related questions or demands.

Which could only mean this wasn't related to work. "...What?"

Finally, she met his gaze. "Are you all right? You look like something's been bothering you."

"It's nothing." (_Is that why she's trying to talk to me like this? Am I that transparent?_) It occurred to him that the way he answered quickly and then ducked back into paperwork probably didn't help his case. He tapped his pen against the desk to stall until a more reasonable explanation (_excuse_) surfaced. "...I just can't wait for this conference to be over with."

Xu folded her arms with a tired sigh, looking off into the rafters breaking up the night-cloaked skylight. "Me too. These preparations are killing us, and it hasn't even really started."

Speaking of premature hassles, "I ran into Doctor Odine downstairs."

Her surprise reflected his own at the doctor's appearance, in a subtle yet startled blink. "Here? In the lobby?"

"No, in the basement. That's where we greet all our guests." As soon as he said it, that didn't seem like such a bad policy. Maybe Squall wouldn't have to put up with so many solicitors looking for special forces hand-outs, or private security contractors trying to recruit students from under Garden's nose, or scientists like Odine trying to squeeze GFs out their dwindling pool if these people first had to make it past the oilboyles lurking in the sub-levels.

"Smart alek. So how did that go?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"That well, huh? I'm sure he was impressed with your stellar people skills."

"Shut up." He was about to snip, _As if you could do better,_ but then he realized that she probably could. That was the reason he so often delegated Garden's public announcements to her, after all.

"Fair enough." She shifted away, as if to get up and leave, but instead withdrew something from her coat pocket. Even behind the dim shadow of the lamp, Squall spied the unmistakable glint of gold foil as she coyly shuffled a deck of cards in one hand. "What about your playing skills? Care to show me what you'll be bringing to the tournament this weekend?"

Squall bit back a look of amusement. "What makes you think I'm going to that?"

"Honestly." Xu found the sliver of neon green almost completely buried in white papers, and pinned it with a finger. "You've had one eye glued to that flyer for the past week. I'm not blind."

"...Fair enough." Squall met her challenge by opening a drawer and pulling out a deck of his own. It was amazing how often it paid to keep one handy. It was a little ridiculous—and perhaps a strange comment on society, if he looked at it analytically—but Squall wasn't the type to over-analyze a chance to play cards. He only knew an opponent when he met one. "Let's game."

Xu scoffed through a grin, '_I knew it'_ on the tip of her tongue, yet all she did was help him clear the desk and set up the first match.

-3-

Xu had the upper hand while he was taking a few matches to warm up, but once they were playing in earnest, Squall trounced her at the game. By the time they were finished he ended up scoring a propagator card, which did improve his mood somewhat. At any rate, it was after 2200 and he was feeling as worn out as ever (still something nagging, itching, clawing at the back of his mind, some word or phrase he meant to remember but can't, like something gagged trying to speak, like something tied up trying to move) by the time he stepped back into Rinoa's room.

Past the muted fluorescent markers of the breezeway it was dark, as expected (_Rinoa must still be out_), but once Squall shut the door he swiftly noticed that it wasn't the right _kind_ of dark, the darkness of vacant quarters. There was a candle lit on the nearby table, and he wandered from it to another on the coffee table, and from there into the bedroom, and from there to the woman on the bed, sitting back on her hands with her slender legs sweetly crossed under some lacy pink lingerie.

Of all the sparkly ornaments in Rinoa's room, just then her eyes were the brightest, gleaming darkly over a restrained smile. She could have said anything—_anything_—at that moment and it would've suited Squall perfectly, and he knew she could talk until daybreak if she were possessed to do so—but she held her tongue, and that in itself was horribly tantalizing. She only looked at him with that smile on the brink of taking over, rich golden shadows falling through a halo of black hair and painting her pale skin with burning tiger-stripes.

"Squall," she finally said, simply, softly, as she beckoned him to the bed, and then—not for the first time—he caught himself thinking that all the pink didn't look so bad, in this light.


End file.
